Luc Bruyere

I met Luc in the Bois de Vincennes, early June, 2022. He was shirtless, white leather pants streaked green. He looked like trouble and peace rolled into one, flashing a slow, dangerous smile while his friends talked about nothing. I sat across from him, lit a cigarette I didn’t want, and watched him watch me.
He said he wanted to spend a week alone in the forest. I told him I’d just got out of three years in one. That made him grin wider, like he’d found something rare. He didn’t blink, didn’t break gaze.
As the sun dipped behind the trees, everyone else seemed content to stay in the shade with their hummus and laughs, but he and I drifted toward the edge of the lawn, chasing the last rays.
We lay down in the tall grass. Spoke low. There was something about his calm and joyful presence that felt romantic. By night’s end, we’d made a plan. His place, Pigalle. Few days.

Is there something you’re waiting for in your life?
I’m waiting to be happy. I think sometimes this constant running doesn’t allow me to see that I already am. You know, that strange thing about happiness—it’s often only in hindsight that you realize: that was it. And that frustrates me. It’s rare when I can say, right now, I’m really happy.

When was the last time you felt that? When you knew the moment itself was happiness?
A long time ago. It was when I decided to divorce. My husband came to Paris just after the lockdown. I hadn’t wanted to go back to Berlin, to him, so I kept lying—saying there were no flights because of Covid and so on. One day, I was on acid at a friend’s place in the countryside. He called me on FaceTime. I noticed he was in a car that wasn’t ours, so I asked about it. ‘I rented it,’ he said. ‘Why?’ ‘Because I’m coming to Paris.’ I was shocked. He said, ‘Yeah, there are no planes, so I’m driving to pick you up.’ He was so in love.
He arrived just as I was coming down from the trip. I jumped in the car, and we drove twelve hours back to Berlin. When we got home, I was feeling so sick that I wanted to vomit. Then I told him: I want a divorce. He started crying. I was talking and talking, trying to explain myself. Eventually, he left to return the car. And when he walked out the door, I felt… wow. It was sunny. I was standing on our pink carpet, completely relieved, excited about my future. It felt like the beginning of something new. I was happy, like a kid the night before vacation.

What went wrong in the marriage?
I think I just melted into it. Before him, I only knew crazy, passionate love. Always intense. Always burning. I knew I was in love when it felt like fire, and it was as good as bad for me. But when I met him, he fell in love with me immediately. Everything was easy. We were a good team. He was my best friend, my confidant, the sex was good… but I didn’t feel that fire. I was just okay. And I thought: maybe this is what true love looks like. My friends kept saying, ‘Luc, you always live love like a crazy—maybe it’s time to grow up.’

What do you mean by crazy love?
The guy before him—I loved him the most. But we never had sex. He had some issue with his penis, couldn’t go through with it, so we always had kind of the beginning of sex, but then he would leave my house. He was an alcoholic. And we ended up having a real fight in the street. I broke his nose. He broke two of my fingers. I’m not violent—it’s not who I am. He turned me into someone I didn’t like. But when he was near me, I didn’t need anything else. We didn’t even have to talk or touch. Just his presence made me feel whole. That’s what I call crazy. Without him, life lost its flavor.

What happened after the boxing match you had with him?
The next day I had to dance at the Opera. Arte was filming me. So I remember seeing myself on TV with a cast on my hand, unable to move it properly. I thought, My God, Love should never do this to anyone. I only have one hand. It’s everything to me. And I hurt it. We hurt it.

What does love mean to you?
Everything. I don’t feel alive if I’m not in love. It’s like my soul is waiting. Also, to be me is to feel always lonely. I was born without an arm, so I was an outsider from the start. I also realised early that I was gay. At 17, I started using heroin. I contracted HIV. All of that took me further from society. I felt so lonely, so misunderstood. People living “normal” lives can’t understand. That’s why love is the only thing that dispels my loneliness. When I’m in love, I belong. I feel seen and accepted for who I am—not validated, just understood. Love lets me share the joy I feel about being alive. And I do love life so much. But life alone has no meaning for me. When I’m in love, I stop thinking about the past or the future. I’m fully present. I have to be. And I love that feeling.’

Do you feel vulnerable in those moments?
Vulnerability took work. When I was younger, I didn’t let myself be vulnerable with people I loved. I wanted to remain this fantasy—charming, confident, strong. I modeled for ten years. That’s how I realised I was beautiful and I have an example to give to someone who is, maybe different, but also considered as a beautiful and charming outsider, and actually belongs here. It also gave me the legitimacy to seduce. I thought I have to do it all the time. But now, I’ve discovered the part of me that needs to speak out, to be soft, to be real. And it’s so risky.

What’s the risk?
If people love you when you’re vulnerable, they love you. But if they don’t… then you can’t pretend. It means they saw you and didn’t love you. And for me, it’s really hard to accept that someone doesn’t love me. I’m not confident enough to withstand that. I think I’m always searching through other people’s eyes for the love I can’t give myself. Right now, I’m trying to work on that — to find love within my own chest, to be able to be myself no matter what, to be strong and vulnerable at the same time. Because if I’m okay with myself, if I love myself enough and I’m vulnerable in front of people who don’t like me, then I won’t be destroyed anymore.
But before… It’s still hard when I’m in front of someone who doesn’t validate me — or even if I hear that someone I don’t know hates me. It hurts me a lot, even though I know I shouldn’t care. But it hurts me deeply. That’s why I have to find love within myself.

What do you love most about yourself?
That I understand how big life is, and how small I am in front of it. I love my humility. I know how to observe—because I had to. As a child, I had no friends. Other kids were cruel. So I watched people, studied them. I learned how to belong. And when I applied that knowledge, everything came—modelling, fame. But these aren’t my rules. I want truth. I want people to stop looking from inside their bubbles, assuming they know the world. I want them to see beauty again.

Is there something you deplore about yourself?
My insecurity about my body. Once I understood I’m not a teenager anymore, I started aching for a man’s body. I go to the gym, but it’s frustrating. People with two arms can do push-ups and see instant results. Me? If I want to transform my body, I need outside help—a prosthetic that costs €8000 and takes two years to adapt. I hate limits. I hate when my body makes me feel weak. A year ago, I wouldn’t have admitted that. I was too proud. And that pride—that’s part of the problem.

Where does your pride come from? A coping mechanism?
Yes. It was my way of hiding insecurity. If you want to be seen as “normal”—not as a disabled guy or a faggot—you have to act strong. You have to be strong. If I showed weakness, people would label me. If I couldn’t be independent with one arm, they’d treat me differently. So I faked normal for so long, I stopped asking whether I was okay. Also, my mum felt so guilty when I was born that she got depressed and I had to be strong for her, too, and to tell her, ‘Mum, it’s not a problem. I’m okay!’ I had to say that so early… I never got the chance to ask myself if I really was okay. And now I know—I wasn’t.

I didn’t know what to say. So I asked him something random.
What’s your guilty pleasure?
Sex, he said softly, and smiled.
Why guilty?
Because I love it too much.
What’s too much?
When I spend the entire day thinking about it. When I have sex without even considering the other person. Sometimes I do it just for the mechanics—just hormones. I’ll go to saunas I don’t even like, just to find guys who’ll sleep with me. It feeds my ego. I feel like I could have anyone I want,—he snapped his fingers—but then I have sex with people I wouldn’t even talk to if we had a two-minute conversation. I regret that. I’ve put myself in awful situations, just because I wanted to feel someone inside me.

I’ve heard that the desire for sex isn’t as raw as hunger, thirst, or sleepiness — that it often stems from something else, like a sense of loneliness.
True. When I’m in love, I’m faithful. And it’s not a rule—it’s just how I am. If my partner wants to sleep with someone else, I don’t mind. But I’m a dreamer. I always hope I’ll be enough. When I’m in love, my body belongs to that person. I can still notice someone else is cute, but it doesn’t move me. But when I’m not in love, it’s different. I’m vainly looking for love through sex. And of course I get disappointed. So I do it again and again, hoping the next guy will be enough. I never believed love would just find me—I thought I didn’t deserve it. So I hunted for it like a job. I’m trying to stop that now.

Why did you think you didn’t deserve love?
I hate saying this—it sounds like cliché psychology—but it’s the truth: I had a bipolar mother. Sometimes she was loving, sometimes violent. She’d say I ruined her life because I was disabled. It was so harsh. Then she’d cry and apologise. But the words stayed. I believed I was the problem. Now, I’m finally facing the truth.
What truth?
That my childhood wasn’t unhappy, but my family was crazy. I was kicked out at 14 for saying I’m gay. My dad left without a word—his new girlfriend didn’t want kids around. Everything I have now, I built alone. I’m my only close friend. No one took big risks for me. No one was there when I really needed it. And I don’t blame them—I didn’t share my problems. I was too proud. Too insecure.

Do you have any dreams beyond love?
No. He laughed. Even my career is tied to it. I used to think fame would bring me love. As a teenager, I believed that being famous meant people would care. And now that I am famous—at least in Paris—I see it’s the opposite. People are drawn to the image. I don’t know if they love me. It’s lonelier. In my last relationship, that was the problem. He was 22, a young actor. He was in love—but not with me. With the idea of me. He knew so much about me before we even met. And when I realised that… I felt truly alone. I just want to be seen for who I am.’

And who are you?
I’m a nice guy. The nicest. I want people to be happy. I don’t care about the things people assume I care about—my image, my clothes. I really don’t. I just want to share my love for life. But people can’t see that because of the image.

What excites you about life?
I almost died when I was 19. Heroin and HIV. I went to rehab. Took a bunch of tests. On my 19th birthday, the doctor came in and said, ‘Bad news: you’re HIV positive. And if you don’t stop using, you’ll be dead in two or three weeks.’ That’s when life started making sense. Before that, I never asked if I wanted to live. I was just a kid destroying myself by looking for pleasure.

What makes you sad?
Loneliness. Injustice. Stupidity.
What do you do when you’re lonely?
I have sex. No matter where I am, I create the conditions for it.
Do you feel less lonely after?
Sometimes. Sometimes it’s a good distraction. Sometimes, I feel even lonelier afterward.

I have an idea for the words I’d tattoo on your left shoulder.

*Near me